GREAT BATTLE OF THE BULGE PHOTO:A tank destroyer supporting the 82nd Airborne. Note the heavy fog. The photo has a “bone chill” feel. December 16, 1944 is the day the Germans launched their attack in the Ardennes.
Archive for 2016
December 14, 2016
HE’S NOT ALONE: “’Maybe I’m just pissed off, but I really don’t give a shit about what happens to Huma to be honest with you,’ one close adviser to Hillary Clinton told me recently.”
By the way, when Vanity Fair(!) begins an article about the Clintons and their inner circle with a lede like that, you know how angry they are with Hillary – and her inner circle. Speaking of which:
But amid Clinton’s stunning post-election hangover, some inside the inner circle wonder if Abedin became overwhelmed by the attention, and shut too many people out. “She was enjoying the red carpet and enjoying the photo spreads much too much in my opinion,” one Clinton insider told me. “She enjoyed being a celebrity too much.” The close Clinton adviser elaborated that Abedin and the other tight-knit circle of people may have suffocated Clinton, preventing the campaign from taking in outside counsel. “The real anger is toward Hillary’s inner circle,” the Clinton insider told me. “They reinforced all the bad habits.” For instance, the suggestion had been made that Clinton should show her gregarious side, by, for instance, appearing more often on The View. (She appeared once, but Bernie Sanders, her rival for the nomination, appeared a handful of times.)
Why, it’s almost as if Hillary is a stunningly terrible retail politician or something.
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1315.
DOES ANYONE HERE KNOW HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME?
Was Hillary running a popular vote campaign? This is crazy. pic.twitter.com/O3ddknvX6Q
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) December 14, 2016
Maybe we were expecting too much from an unaccomplished Senator who went on to prove the Peter Principle to be overly optimistic during her tenure at State.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. So what if Trump and Perry shut down the Energy Department? No one will miss it.
The departments of Energy and Education are little more than make-work programs for Progressives, Greens, and others whose real interests lie in preventing energy production and warping education.
WE MUST SILENCE SUCH KNOWN OUTLETS FOR RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION AS . . . THE NEW YORK TIMES! Counter-Disinformation Bill Clears Senate.
Amid all the media hysteria over Russian propaganda and its effect on the U.S. presidential election, few have noted the quiet advance of legislation designed to counter such threats. Last week, a counter-propaganda bill sponsored by Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) passed the Senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. The bill is expected to be signed by President Obama before he leaves office. . . .
The Portman-Murphy bill will be funded to the tune of $160 million over two years: a notable increase from the $20 million demanded in an earlier version. What remains to be seen is how effectively that money will be spent. As Karina Orlova noted in May, raw expenditures are not a reliable indicator of propaganda’s effectiveness, particularly in the Russian case. And it is anxiety over the supposed effectiveness of Kremlin-funded Russian propaganda that appears to have driven the newfound push to pass the bill. . . .
Finally, there is the risk that empowering anti-propaganda efforts will only add to the unreasonable panic over Putin-planted “fake news” that has engulfed public debate since the election. We have argued before that such hysteria is overwrought, and that overreacting will only play into Putin’s hands. This does not mean that the Portman-Murphy bill is misguided, or that the threat is not real. But it is important to remember that an effective counter-disinformation effort should help us see the threat more clearly, not inflate it unnecessarily.
Walter Duranty was unavailable for comment, as he was burning in Hell. The editors of Vogue, however, hope you forget their puff-piece on Bashar Assad and his wife.
FINDING HISTORY: Archaeologists discover mysterious 2,500-year-old ‘lost city’ in Greece.
Experts have already made significant progress in the archaeological project. “We found a town square and a street grid that indicate that we are dealing with quite a large city,” said Rönnlund, in the press release. The area inside the city wall measures over 99 acres, or 75 football fields.
The discovery of ancient pottery and coins will help to date the city, according to Rönnlund. “Our oldest finds are from around 500 BC, but the city seems to have flourished mainly from the fourth to the third century BC before it was abandoned for some reason, maybe in connection with the Roman conquest of the area,” he said, in the press release.
Historians know relatively little about ancient cities in the region, which makes the latest discovery particularly significant. “The preliminary results of our investigation are important as they give clear evidence that western Thessaly was no backwater, but a rich and vibrant society within the ancient world,” Rönnlund told FoxNews.com, via email.
While local authorities have known about the Vlochós remains for some time, this is the first time that systematic research has been conducted in the area.
TRANSPARENCY: Department of Energy Refuses to Tell Trump Team Who’s Working on Climate Change.
Secretary Rick Perry should send a few heads rolling and see if that doesn’t loosen a few lips.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Antonia Okafor: 15 Racist Classroom Presentations That Will Make You Never Want to Send Your Kids to College.
Obviously if you see anything like this, you should immediately report it to the Bias Response Team, and follow up to make sure they take your complaint seriously.
WHY ARE LEFTIST ENCLAVES SUCH CESSPITS OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND CENSORSHIP? In Seattle, say something nice about prostitutes, get charged with “promoting prostitution.” “The dozen defendants, most of whom who will be arraigned in King County District Court on December 14, face one count each of promoting prostitution in the second degree—a charge historically used to target people who profit off of the prostitution of others but more recently favored by King County prosecutors to go after people who write positively online about area prostitution.”
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Uber is bringing a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco, a move likely to both excite the city’s tech-savvy population and antagonize California regulators.
Uber’s self-driving tests in San Francisco will begin with a “handful” of Volvo luxury SUVs — the company wouldn’t release an exact number — that have been tricked out with sensors so they can steer, accelerate and brake, and even decide to change lanes. The cars will have an Uber employee behind the wheel to take over should the technology fail. Users of the app may be matched with a self-driving car, but can opt out if they prefer a human driver. Self-driven rides cost the same as ordinary ones.
The cars will be put to the test in the congested streets of San Francisco. The city can be a daunting place to drive given its famously steep hills, frequent fog, street and cable cars, an active bicycle culture, and roads that are constantly being repaved, remarked and restricted for bike lanes and traffic management.
Uber believes its technology is ready to handle all this safely, though its executives concede the vehicles are nowhere near able to drive without a human ready to take control in dicey situations.
As this former resident can tell you, driving San Francisco’s streets isn’t as much of a chore as this story makes it out to be, but anything beats trying to find a parking space — even riding the Muni.
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD IN MEXICO:
Vigilantes in a Mexican village have seized the mother of a local gang leader and proposed swapping her for a kidnap victim taken on Monday.
After seizing alleged collaborators of the gang, including the mother of the leader “El Tequilero”, the locals have recorded video messages for the gang.
“In return for my husband’s life, I will deliver your mother,” says the kidnap victim’s wife in one video, which has been broadcast on local TV.
Read the entire article.
This BBC report uses “vigilantes” to describe villagers and townspeople who take up arms to defend themselves and communities against drug gangs. “Vigilantes” is the term preferred by the Mexican government. Many villagers prefer other descriptions like local defense force, community defense force or volunteer community militia.
CHINA MAPPING OUT STRATEGY FOR AN AMERICA LED BY TRUMP: President-elect Trump has already replaced President Ash Carter as Beijing’s bete noire.
From North Korea to Iran to a closely entwined business relationship worth $598 billion in 2015, the two countries have broad common interests, and China expects Trump to understand that.
While China was angered by Trump’s call this month with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, and then casting doubt over the future of the “one China” policy under which the U.S. recognizes Taiwan as being part of China, it was also quite restrained, said a senior Beijing-based Western diplomat
“China’s game now is to influence him and not antagonize him,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Yup. The Donald’s Taiwan phone chat was a wake up call for the Chinese government. And it was supposed to be.
RELIGION OF PEACE: A Saudi woman tweeted a photo of herself without a hijab. Police have arrested her.
According to a woman interviewed by the International Business Times, Shehri had tweeted about her plans to go to breakfast without a headscarf or abaya, and her followers asked her to post a picture. The tweet and photo were posted from her account @AngelQShe, which was later deleted.
Shehri, whose first name means angel, soon received hateful messages, including many with the hashtag “we demand the imprisonment of the rebel Malak al-Shehri.”
One account tweeted “we want blood.” Other users wrote, “Kill her and throw her corpse to the dogs” and “The least punishment for her is beheading her.”
Charming.
RACE AND ADMISSIONS IN ARKANSAS: UALR LawProf Robert Steinbuch writes:
I recently sued my law school (the UALR-Bowen School of Law) to get access to admissions and bar-passage data. I wasn’t planning on doing that, but it became necessary after the administration refused my Freedom of Information Act request about these matters. After I filed suit, the school gave me the data I wanted.
When I examined that data, I discovered a set of uncomfortable facts that was difficult to reconcile with the narrative that my law school had presented. Litigation produces results, even though I had hoped (like all potential plaintiffs) to avoid its time and expense.
As a lawyer and law professor, I understand the value of the American dispute resolution system, i.e., courts. I’ve done what I teach my students: I’ve used courts to pursue justice. As I was pursuing my lawsuit and chasing the data, I was challenged by my colleagues (which was o.k.) and attacked by them (which was not o.k.); I added retaliation claims to my lawsuit; and I published a law-journal article in which my PhD-in-statistics coauthor and I confirmed that the UALR law school had admitted some minorities with significantly lower incoming metrics, which corresponded with significantly worse bar-passage rates. Since then, I have been appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’s Arkansas Advisory Committee.
Punch back twice as hard.
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Blind man sets out alone in Google’s driverless car.
A blind man has successfully traveled around Austin — unaccompanied — in a car without a steering wheel or floor pedals, Google announced Tuesday.
After years of testing by Google engineers and employees, the company’s new level of confidence in its fully autonomous technology was described as a milestone.
“We’ve had almost driverless technology for a decade,” said Google engineer Nathaniel Fairfield. “It’s the hard parts of driving that really take the time and the effort to do right.”
Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, was the first non-Google employee to ride alone in the company’s gumdrop-shaped autonomous car.
“It is like driving with a very good driver,” Mahan said. “If you close your eyes when you’re riding with somebody, you get a sense of whether this is a good driver or whether they’re not. These self-driving cars drive like a very good driver.”
The rise of driverless cars will mean a new era of freedom for the blind, the elderly, and people with other sorts of disabilities.
FORMER POLITICO EDITOR: Matt Drudge Changed It All.
The media’s angst over its role in “post-truth America” is expanding as President-elect Trump takes shots at the news business and even U.S. intelligence agencies.
The latest example is a lengthy essay by the former editor of Politico for the Brookings Institution that suggests the control of news by mainstream gatekeepers ended when Matt Drudge and his “Drudge Report” broke the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky sex affair.
It’s funny to hear members of the press, which covered up affairs by JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton — and, more recently, John Edwards — because it wanted to help Democrats win, suddenly going on about “post-truth America” now that it’s no longer able to do that sort of thing.
RED LINES: Fierce fighting halts Aleppo evacuation.
A ceasefire was declared in Aleppo on Tuesday and buses brought in to ferry people out of the devastated enclave.
But fighting resumed on Wednesday. Syrian activists also say air strikes over rebel-held territory have resumed.
The breakdown of the deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey, is being attributed to demands from the Syrian government.
It is said to be seeking the evacuation of its own injured fighters and civilians from nearby towns encircled by opposition forces.
Looks like Assad might have begun his Aleppo reprisals too soon, while some of his own people are still subject to reprisals of their own.
WE HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE! NOW STOP ASKING QUESTIONS! Energy Dept refuses to name staffers who worked on climate.
The Department of Energy said Tuesday it will reject the request by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to name staffers who worked on climate change programs.
Energy spokesman Eben Burnhan-Snyder said the agency received “significant feedback” from workers regarding a questionnaire from the transition team that leaked last week.
“Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled,” Snyder said.
The survey for department leadership included more than 70 questions regarding what the agency does, its workforce, costs, professional affiliations and more.
But it also asked for a list of employees who worked on various climate change priorities in President Obama’s administration, including the Paris climate agreement and the social cost of carbon, an accounting measure for the costs of climate change.
That led to fears that Trump’s administration was undertaking a “witch hunt” to single out those workers.
“We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department,” Burnham-Snyder said in the Tuesday statement, first reported by The Washington Post.
Yeah, it’s not like these people work for the taxpayers, under the direction of the President, or anything.
YES, PLEASE: F-22 and F-35 Stealth Fighters Armed with Super Lasers?
Aircraft-launched laser weapons could eventually be engineered for a wide range of potential uses, including air-to-air combat, close air support, counter-UAS(drone), counter-boat, ground attack and even missile defense, officials said.
Lasers use intense heat and light energy to incinerate targets without causing a large explosion, and they operate at very high speeds, giving them a near instantaneous ability to destroy fast-moving targets and defend against incoming enemy attacks, senior Air Force leaders explained.
Low cost is another key advantage of laser weapons, as they can prevent the need for high-cost missiles in many combat scenarios.
Air Force Research Laboratory officials have said they plan to have a program of record for air-fired laser weapons in place by 2023.
All I want for Christmas is stealth fighters with fricken laser beams.
ALSO, THE DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK: Typo led to Podesta email hack: report.